Biltmore Oswald Page 9
Most of the time I passed pleasantly on the soft, fresh flank of ahill where for a while I slept until a cow breathed heavily in my faceand reminded me that it was war after all. My instructions were tokeep away from the guns, and get killed as soon as possible. As theseinstructions were not difficult to follow, I carried them out to theletter. I stayed away from the guns and I permitted myself to bekilled several times in order to make sure it would take. After that Ibecame a sort of composite camp follower, deserter and straggler.
In my wandering I chanced upon an ancient enemy of many pastencounters.
"Are you Red or Blue?" I asked, preparing to die for the fifth time.
"No," he answered, sarcastically, "I'm what you might call elephantear gray."
"Are you the guy the reporter for the camp paper was referring to inhis last story?" I asked him.
"Yes," he replied, "the slandering blackguard."
"You hit me on the nose with a push-ball," said I.
"I'll do it again," said he.
"That reporter, evidently a man of some observation, said you didn'twash your neck and that you had the habits of a camel."
"But I do wash my neck," he said, stubbornly, "and I don't knowanything about the habits of a camel, but whatever they might happento be, I haven't got 'em."
"Yes," I replied, as if to myself, "you certainly should wash yourneck. That's the very least you could do."
"But I tell you," he cried, desperately, "I keep telling you that I dowash my neck. Why do you go on talking about it as if I didn't! I tellyou now, once for all time, that I do wash my neck, and that ends it.Don't talk any more. I want to think."
We sat in silence for a space, then I remarked casually, almostinaudibly, "and you certainly shouldn't have the habits of a camel."
The depraved creature stirred uneasily. "I ain't got 'em," he said.
"Good," I cried heartily. "We understand each other perfectly. In thefuture you will try to wash your neck and cease from having the habitsof a camel. No compromise is necessary. I know you will keep yourword."
"Go away quickly," he gasped, searching around for a stone to hurl atme, and discarding several because of their small size. "Go away tosomewhere else. I'm telling you now, go away or else a special detailwill find your lifeless body here in the bushes some time to-morrow."
"I've already been thoroughly killed several times to-day," I said,putting a tree between us, "but don't forget about the camel, and forheaven's sake do try to keep your neck--"
A stone hit the tree with a resounding crack, and I increased thedistance.
"Damn the torpedoes!" I shouted back as I disappeared into thepleasant security of the sun-warmed woods.
_May 11th._ "What navy do you belong to?" asked an Ensign, stopping meto-day, "the Chinese?"
"Why do you ask, sir?" I replied, saluting gracefully. "Of course Idon't belong to the Chinese Navy."
"What's your rating?" he snapped. "Show girl first class attached tothe good ship Biff! Bang! sir," came my prompt retort.
"Well, put a watch mark on your arm, sailor, and put it there pronto,or you'll be needing an understudy to pinch hit for you."
As a matter of fact I have never put my watch mark on, for the simplereason that I have been rather expecting a rating at any moment, butit seems as if my expectations were doomed to disappointment.
Nothing matters much, anyway, now, however, for I have been selectedfrom among all the men in the station to play the part of a Show Girlin the coming magnificent Pelham production, "Biff! Bang!" At last Ihave found the occupation to which by training and inclination I amnaturally adapted. The Grand Moguls that are running this show camearound the barracks the other day looking for material, and when theygazed upon me I felt sure that their search had not been in vain.
"Why don't you write a 'nut' part for him?" asked one of them of theplaywright as they surveyed me critically as if I was some rarespecimen of bug life.
"That would never do," he answered. "Real 'nuts' can never play thepart on the stage. You've got to have a man of intelligence."
"Look here," I broke in. "You've got to stop talking about me beforemy face as if I wasn't really present. Nuts I may be, but I can stillunderstand English, even when badly spoken, and resent it. Lay offthat stuff or I'll be constrained to introduce you to a new brand of'Biff! Bang!'"
Saying this, I struck an heroic attitude, but it seemed to produce nostartling change in their calm, deliberate examination of me.
"He'll do, I think, as a Show Girl," the dance-master mused dreamily."Like a cabbage, every one of his features is bad, but the wholeeffect is not revolting. Strange, isn't it, how such things happen."At this point the musician broke in.
"He ain't agoing to dance to my music if I know it. He'll ruin it." Atwhich remark I executed a few rather simple but nevertheless neatsteps I had learned at the last charity Bazaar to which I hadcontributed my services, and these few steps were sufficient to closethe deal. I was signed up on the spot. As they were leaving thebarracks one excited young person ran up and halted the arrogantThespians. "If I get the doctor to remove my Adam's Apple," he pleadedwistfully, "do you think you could take me on as a pony?"
"No," said one of them, not without a certain show of kindness. "Ifear not. It would be necessary for him to remove the greater part ofyour map and graft a couple of pounds on to your sadly unendowedlimbs."
From that day on my life has become one of unremitting toil. Togetherwith the rest of the Show Girls I vamp and slouch my way around theclock with ever increasing seductiveness. We are really doingsplendidly. The ponies come leaping lightly across the floor wavingtheir freckled, muscular arms from side to side and looking veryunattractive indeed in their B.V.D.'s, high shoes and sock supporters."I can see it all," says the Director, in an enthusiastic voice, andif he can I'll admit he has some robust quality of imagination that Ifail to possess.
Us Show Girls, of course, have to be a little more modest than theponies, so we retain our white trousers. These are rolled up, however,in order to afford the mosquitoes, who are covering the show mostconscientiously, room to roost on. And sad to relate, the life isbeginning to affect the boys. Only yesterday I saw one of our toughestponies vamping up the aisle of Mess Hall No. 2 with his tray held overhis head in the manner of a Persian slave girl. The Jimmy-legs,witnessing this strange sight, dropped his jaw and forgot to lift itup again. "Sweet attar of roses," he muttered. "What ever has happenedto our poor, long-suffering navy?" At the door of the Mess Hall thepony bowed low to the deck and withdrew with a coy backward flirt ofhis foot.
I can't express in words the remarkable appearance made by some of ourseagoing chorus girls when they attempt to assume the light and airygraces of the real article. Some of the men have so deeply enteredinto their parts that they have attained absolute self-forgetfulness,with the result that they leap and preen about in a manner quitestartling to the dispassionate spectator. My career so far has notbeen a personal triumph. In the middle of a number, the other night,the dancing master clapped his hands violently together, a signal heuses when he wants all motion to cease.
"Take 'em down to the end of the room, boys," he said. "I can tellthree minutes ahead of time when things are going to go wrong. Thatman on the end didn't have a thought in his head. He would havesmeared the entire number." I was the man on the end.
_May 23d._ This has not been a particularly agreeable day, although toa woman no doubt it would have been laden with moments of exquisiteecstasy. Feminine apparel for me has lost for ever the charm ofmystery that formerly touched it with enchantment. There is nothing Ido not know now. Its innermost secret has been revealed and itsrevelation has brought with it its full burden of woe. All knowledgeis pain and vice versa. I have always admired wom
en; whether soprofoundly as they have admired me I know not; however that may be, Ihave always admired them collectively and individually in the past,but after today's experience my admiration is tinged with pity. Thesource of these reflections lies in no less an article than a corset.As a Show Girl, it has been my lot to be provided with one of thesefiendish devices of medieval days. It is too much. The corset must go.No woman could have experienced the pain and discomfort I have beensubjected to this day without feeling